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attempts of full-grown human nest mates in the dungeons to guard each other and their offspring.
    ‘Nope. Not even,’ said Threshy. ‘This bitch be like Agent Romanoff or something. And she’s got the Dave with her.’
    Guyuk frowned again.
    ‘The Dave follows this one? In her thrall?’
    Threshy made an equivocating gesture with his fore-claws.
    ‘Meh, not so much I don’t think.’ He sucked air in through his fang tracks. ‘I think she might be another champion.’
    He let that sink in for a moment. The lord commander glowered at the revelation, but not at his Superiorae.
    ‘So this city we have invested, it also boasts a champion? And she is in league with the Dave?’
    Threshy threw up his claws. ‘Like I fucking know. Thing is, she’s not like the Dave. She’s like . . . me. And my guy she put down. She got like the mind bullets, bro. And she and my Threshrend they’re like, I dunno. You ever watch Harry Potter, when the wizards are in the Octagon? No, scratch that. Dumb question. Anyway, the take-away. My guy, his radar somehow picks up the Dave and Romanoff when they get close and he does . . . I dunno . . . he does something to them, gets inside their heads somehow, and it totally fucks them up. Well, not totally, but it does fuck them up. Stops the Dave from doing that thing he did to Scaroth and those Djinn bitches, you know?’
    Guyuk obviously did not know.
    ‘Look, he’s super fast,’ Threshy tried to explain. ‘Too fast for us. But it’s not a Jackie Chan thing, you know. The Dave didn’t train himself to be that fast, he just sort of thinks himself into it. And my guy, because he’s got his awesome psychic mojo, he could mess with that. Or, you know, he could mess with it until Romanoff cut his head off.’
    The lord commander took a moment to consider everything Compt’n ur Threshrend had just said.
    ‘There is much we do not know of these champions,’ he said at last, unable to mask his aggravation. ‘And we must take this female as a champion. Another one,’ he grunted, not at all happy with the idea. ‘This is vexing. Bad enough that our cattle have risen to the level of warrior sect. Now we must contend with a female Dave. What if they should breed a whole race of Daves?’
    The very idea was too horrible to contemplate. The part of Compt’n ur Threshrend which was Compton above all else was especially offended.
    ‘Yeah, that’d be just like fucking Hooper. Always falling ass backwards into the pussy pool.’
    Guyuk ignored the remark.
    ‘But if what you say is true,’ he continued, ‘and a Threshrend has discovered a weakness in these champions, we must move to exploit it. So yes, Superiorae, you are correct. We will need to deploy more empaths. But first,’ he said, ‘we cannot hide from our enemy. Your plan is in effect at this moment, Compt’n ur Threshrend, and we must forge on.’
    ‘Yep, yep, totally with you on the forging,’ said Threshy, ‘but, hear me out. My plan doesn’t involve me climbing into a cage fight with Super Dave. That asshole wanted to kill me in Vegas. Probably best we don’t give him a chance to now.’
    Lord Guyuk frowned at him.
    ‘The Dave did not wish to kill you, Superiorae. As I understood it, his antipathy was for the human Scolari whose soul you took up. Compton. The one from whom you have taken your sect name.’
    Threshy paused for a moment too, his jaws agape.
    ‘Yeah,’ he admitted. ‘That was weird.’
    He knew who he was. And that wasn’t some pissant professor. He was the Superiorae dar Threshrendum ur Grymm. He was the motherfucking eater of souls. And that Compton asshole was just a snack. Threshy shuddered and tried to throw off the moment of dissonance. Hurrying on, still dancing around the lord commander’s chamber, but mostly just skipping, he returned to his plans.
    ‘The plan is good, the plan is working, and even though we didn’t plan for the Dave or his lady friend to roll on us, we can deal. I can deal. We